Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) has announced the launch of a new online short festival. Exquisite Shorts is designed to create a new model for shorts filmmakers, paying them for their work while enabling the public to watch for free. The newly launched crowdfunding campaign explains how online screenings will work: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short film from a pool of submissions that they love, that inspired them, or that they feel could use a platform. The filmmaker making the selection will record a video introduction that will play prior to their selected film, which will […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 29, 2020Today, IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project), Filmmaker’s parent organization, announced its Project Forum slate, highlighting 144 feature-length and series projects, including, for the first time, a slate of 36 audio projects, in development and production set to participate in the upcoming 42nd annual edition of IFP Week, taking place entirely online September 20-25, 2020. Along with the Project Forum’s consistent and ongoing support for independent artists working in visual storytelling, this year will offer support to creators working in audio through the introduction of the IFP Week Audio Hub. Expanding upon IFP’s core mission of championing and elevating independent storytellers, the Audio […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 29, 2020Another excellent free streaming series: “After Civilization,” hosted by the Maysles Documentary Center, runs through August 15th. 12 features and shorts are available to stream. Per the Center, the series’ thematic emphasis considers a very immediate question: “when the modern idyll of ‘civilization’ is threatened—whether through active resistance, environmental disaster, or structural collapse—what follows? In an endangered present, the future is not inevitable but to be fought for, reclaimed, reinvented altogether. How do we care for the planet while centering human life, and from where, exactly, will the seeds of collective liberation grow?” Co-curated by Emily Apter, Annie Horner and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 24, 2020In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor During the two months of lockdown in Paris, I lived alone in my painting studio. All the paintings I have made for the last 30 years are there, waiting patiently to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020Clouds have finally arrived after almost three months of the most uncharacteristic bout of sunshine here in London. What brought them? I have been asking for some of that rain and gloom to give me comfort in closing myself off into the bedroom cave that I turn into our private cinema and do nothing but watch movies. I abandoned the fantasy that I could just watch movies all day and night during quarantine. It turns out movies are best enjoyed with a side of life. But, we can’t have too much living for now, as we are strapped down awaiting […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor In many ways, I feel the responsibility of documenting the world more than ever because we’re living the history, and I hope there’s a way I can tell the history or […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor I miss 35mm films the most. Especially as my new wife and I have a strict no-streaming policy at home that we had in place pre-COVID. We didn’t want to turn […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor In early March, I went up to Washington state to do three days of pickup on a documentary an Australian friend was making. I hadn’t worked on the documentary before—I was […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor My experience during this quarantine has been quite ambiguous. I will explain. Germany, where I am based, was one of the first countries to report cases of COVID-19. I remember that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor I’m in self-isolation with my thoughts of how the world and our images have changed… but will we? I’m rereading Paul Schrader’s Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, a brilliant […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020